Revenge, How To Beat Pain and Britain’s Hidden Homeless: TV Picks

TV preview: Hit US drama Revenge lands in the UK via E4, two brain boxes knock each other about in How To Beat Pain and Mercury Prize-winner Speech Debelle investigates Britain’s Hidden Homeless tonight.

Emily VanCamp takes the lead in successful US show Revenge (Picture: E4)

Revenge, E4, 9pm

This hit US drama begins with a quote from Chinese philosopher Confucius: ‘Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’ But if that all sounds deep and meaningful, don’t worry – we’re soon hurtling into glossy Gossip Girl/Desperate Housewives territory as we head to the Hamptons in New York to follow Emily Thorne (Emily VanCamp), a girl intent on wreaking havoc on the poshos who have wronged her and her unjustly imprisoned father.

How To Beat Pain, BBC1, 7.30pm

This may be about pain but Dr Jack Kreindler and Professor Greg Whyte take a jolly approach to the subject, trying out experiments on each other that somehow necessitate trapeze stunts, cage fighting and even the odd bit of slapstick. It’s all rather simplistic but the perennially baffled will at least learn a few ways to alleviate the problems that they focus on – namely back pain, sports injuries and osteoarthritis.Britain’s Hidden Homeless, BBC3, 9pm

Mercury Prize-winning rapper Speech Debelle reports on a problem of which she has personal experience: in her late teens she left home and entered the unsettling world of homeless shelters and friends’ sofas. She was part of a growing number of ‘hidden’ homeless – not technically on the streets but hopping from place to place and low down on councils’ priority lists.The Eiger: Wall Of Death, BBC4, 10.25pm

Since 1935, at least 64 people have died trying to climb the infamous and spectacular north face of the Eiger, the mountain that dominates the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. This film gets to the bottom of its unforgiving nature, finds out what it’s like to live in its shadow and reveals its lasting impact on the brave souls who have managed to scale it.The Real Mr & Mrs Assad, C4, 8pm

Dispatches investigates President Bashar al-Assad and his wife, Asma , who promised the West a progressive and transparent leadership in Syria. Instead, they have presided over a regime accused of corruption and human rights abuses – and they appear ineffectual in the face of the bloody uprising that has gripped the region.

Film Choice: Die Another Day, ITV2, 9pmITV2’s Pierce Brosnan-fest concludes with Mr Smoothie in his fourth and final outing as 007. Can’t remember it? You’re not the only one. And frankly, that invisible car is definitely best forgotten. That said, what became at the time the highest-grossing Bond to date delivers decent, if overly CGI-ed, thrills. This is the one where Bond infiltrates a North Korean military base and grows a dodgy beard, Madonna makes a cameo as a fencing instructor and Halle Berry looks ever so fetching in an orange bikini.